Incriminating Evidence
by TresMaxwell
Summary: Is that a hickey, Stokes? You just can't hide some evidence, especially not from the trained eye. Slash, aka male male relationship


"Evenin' everybody," Nick called out as he entered the break room. A chorus of responses came from his slightly less energetic co-workers. With a big grin plastered on his face, he crossed to the coffee machines for his second cup of Joe before shift started. He was in a great mood.

Unknown to him, Warrick and Sara traded glances across their breakfast (some leftover takeout from the day before). The look asked only one thing, 'What's he so happy about?' When neither of them had the answer, they turned to the other occupants of the room. Greg smirked and gave them a shrug, Catherine just shook her head, and Archie chose that moment to remove himself from the room.

Since no one else seemed to have a clue, CSI Brown decided to go to the source, which was currently humming some country-western song while he doctored his coffee.

"Nick, what are you so cheerful about? You get lucky last night?" Warrick questioned with some amusement. He knew his friend well enough that such a mood had to be the result of a romantic evening, but this was a little different from usual.

If it were physically possible, Warrick would swear that Nick's grin just got a little bit wider. "Maybe, or maybe I just get the feeling that this is going to be a good day," the Texan said cryptically and took a swig of his drink.

Definitely not the answer he'd been expecting. The slightest of blushes crossed Nick's face and this riddle was suddenly much more interesting than day-old chow mien. Warrick set down his chopsticks.

"Wait a minute. That's not an 'it's going to be a good day' smile, that's bull. You want to tell us what that's really about, man?"

Nick forced the grin to fade into a knowing smirk and commented nonchalantly, "No, not really."

Greg laughed at the casual dismissal Warrick had received and shifted so he was sitting cross-legged on the couch. "Oh, those are fightin' words!" he crowed playfully.

Catherine sighed disapprovingly, but an amused smirk counteracted it. She gave an attempt to come to the blushing Texan's defense, "I'm sure he'll share the knowledge in good time, so don't pressure him. Besides, too much more teasing, and you could make him turn purple."

A round of good-natured chuckles passed around the group and the subject started to fade. Warrick picked up his chopsticks and was about to go back to his Chinese when something caught the attention of his sharp eyes. A spot of flesh, just peaking over the collar of Nick's polo, looked bruised. It wasn't the kind of bruise that a fight would cause, but perhaps…

"Is that a hickey, Stokes?"

Nick came very close to turning that shade of violet Catherine mentioned. He very swiftly moved towards the door, muttering, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Those who had been his allies immediately turned against him, mainly because the dark side was far more entertaining. Catherine slid smoothly in front of the door, blocking his escape root. "Hold on there, Nick. I'm not so sure I can let you go if you have an unexplained hickey," she teased lightly.

Desperate for someone to be on his side, Nick turned to Sara, who had been trying to remain neutral. "Why don't you tell them to lay off?"

As soon as he spotted the smirk she was hiding behind her hand, he knew she'd be no help to him, he didn't need to wait for her answer, "I don't know. This would be a lot easier if you'd just spill and get it over with. Your love life has never been too secretive, so why start now?"

"Traitor."

"I only join the winning side, Nicky."

Warrick stood and pushed Nick's collar down to examine the evidence. The hickey was not a delicate thing, but dark and large. Someone had spent a long time making it. "You must have let this girl suck on your neck for an hour," he whistled appreciatively.

On the couch, Greg snickered, receiving several strange glances.

"Okay, yes, I had a romantic evening! It was great! And I let my significant other suck on my neck. In fact, I've got a few other hickeys too," he confessed to get them off his back so he could go to work. As soon as the words left his mouth, however, he regretted them. Other hickeys, romantic evening, significant other, what was he thinking? They defiantly weren't going to leave it alone now.

"Significant other?" There must have been an echo in the room, because he could have testified in court that he heard the question three times.

"Wait, so it wasn't a girl!" Nope, never going to leave it alone. He'd leave the Las Vegas Crime Lab thirty years from this moment and someone would mention the time that Nick said he had a significant other… He should have just lied about it, but he was such a bad liar.

Greg's snickering had turned into all out cackling that just sounded plain evil.

"So, is it someone we know? Is that why you don't want to talk about it?" Warrick asked, his eyebrows practically meeting his hairline.

Nick kept his mouth shut, but silence could be more condemning than the loudest confession. Who told him that?

"It is someone we know, then they're in the database."

"Not necessarily," he said weakly.

"Is it Greg?" Sara questioned flatly, shooting the lab tech a quirked eyebrow. The maniacal giggling stopped dead and Greg all but fell off the couch.

Nick didn't even get the chance to deny the claim, because Greg did it for him, disagreeing loudly, "Hell no! I wouldn't suck on Nick's neck if you paid me! You just want to categorize me as gay because I'm trendy."

"Greg has a point. He can't be gay, he has no fashion sense," Sara accused with a wide grin.

The goofy DNA specialist crossed his arms over his chest with a scowl. This had been a lot more fun when Nick had been the center of attention.

Their previous target, at the moment, was attempting to utilize the transfer of attention for his escape. Catherine had moved away from the door to fiddle in her kit, leaving Nick's path to freedom open. He was about to make a break for it when Warrick caught him.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"To work. Maybe the rest of you should follow my fine example," Nick said, more than irritated with this joke and just a little twitchy about their interest in his significant other. The truth was dangerous and he'd prefer that it stay a secret, his secret, his and his lover's.

Warrick placed a light-hearted punch on his friend's arm and gave an attempt to smooth obviously ruffled feathers, "Come on, man. You don't have to get so worked up."

Good, they'd had their laugh (even if it was at his expense) and now the game was done. Nick opened his mouth to say something witty to dismiss the whole ordeal, but something cold and wet touched the side of his neck. He paused, briefly, and turned to catch Catherine snapping a swab tube shut.

"Sorry, Nicky, just collecting evidence." It took all of about five seconds for that to process. The wet sensation would have been the non-soluble agent that, when applied to a swab, helps a CSI collect dry evidence. Catherine was collecting evidence. Catherine was collecting evidence that would have dried on his neck. Saliva. DNA. Shit.

Nick lunged for the incriminating evidence desperately. His fingers came within millimeters of claiming the swab, but CSI Willows snatched it back just in time. Putting her body between the 'suspect' and her new evidence, she managed to keep Nick from grabbing it. Catherine knew she couldn't keep it away from it long, however, so she tossed it to her nearest co-worker.

"Run with it Greggo! Get to your lab!"

Nick watched, in dismay, as the evidence of his romantic evening ran out the door of the break room in the hands of a spiky-haired, punk rocker. He was going to kill Greg Sanders, he really was.

With an entourage of CSI's hot on his heels, Nick tore down the hall after the fleeing swab. The pursuit blew around a day-shift lab technician, leaving him in their wake with a completely dumbfounded look and no idea as to why the night shift got to run around like a bunch of five-year-olds.

Greg slid into his lab only a few steps ahead of the rather angry Texan. Determined to get the answers, he hastily ripped the swab out of its protective plastic and cut off the head in a test tube. He was squirting a measured amount of chemical in with it when Nick made it to his door.

Right on time, Warrick caught up to him and seized his arms. "Hold on there, sport! We're just curious," he informed the squirming Stokes cheerfully.

"It's none of your business!"

"Something that makes our Nicky blush that hard is defiantly our business."

"I was not blushing! Greg, if you continue to process that, I'm going to kill you," Nick threatened will little or no impact.

"Well, I guess it's a good thing that I'm friends with so many CSI. They should be able to figure out that it was you," came the smooth, unaffected answer. Greg siphoned liquid out of the test tube and injected it into the container that he would run through the machine. He set the search parameters for the DNA comparison, restricting it to Crime Lab personnel, and flashed Nick a very evil grin. "Time to see who likes sucking on Nicky's neck."

Nick felt like he was dieing from the inside, out. If questioned directly, he would always have said that he and Warrick were pretty evenly matched when it came to strength, but the truth was that his friend had a slight edge on him. When Warrick had his arms pinned behind him, forcing him to watch DNA process, he was sorely reminded of that.

It only took the high-tech equipment about forty-five seconds to find a match, but it seemed like a lifetime. Just as Greg moved to the printer for his page of secrets, Nick spotted his supervisor coming down the hall. Gil was reading a case file and making a beeline for his office, but surely he wouldn't pass by such a strange scene without noticing.

Nick nearly cheered for joy when Grissom raised his head and looked in their direction. The graying entomologist raised an eyebrow and slid his glasses off his face as he approached, but the printer kicked on (damn those new laser-jets, always printing in a matter of seconds). Greg snatched the page up with itchy fingers at the same moment that Grissom entered the lab.

"What's going on in here?"

Not worried in the slightest about being a tattle-tale, Nick spilled, "They're using the equipment for tests not related to work!"

Gil tried not to smirk at the Texan's look of total panic and glanced over at Greg, who was staring at the results with a slack jaw. More amused than angry, Grissom snatched the paper from Greg's hand, leaving him to stare at nothing, and gave a few orders over his shoulder as he left, "Warrick, let go of Nick before you bruise him. And the rest of you need to get to work. You can't spend all day fooling around in Greg's lab space."

Once he was gone, several curious pairs of eyes turned to the DNA specialist. Sara was the one to question him, "Well? Who was it?"

Her voice prompted Greg to close his gaping mouth and collect himself. There was no way he'd run the test right, because the results were impossible. "You wouldn't believe me, even if I told you."

Safe in his office, Gil examined the confiscated piece of paper with a shake of his head. He was going to be more careful of where he left hickeys.


End file.
